#experiment 3

I based the gameplay off of the duet I played, as I really liked the randomized options with some choice. I wanted the prompts to feel very dreamlike, in the way that things would seem strange or disconnected. Because of this, I was a bit worried about how the narrative would be able to fit together. I wanted players to still be able to tell a story, just one that felt dreamlike. The other thing I was worried about was the difference between environmental and personal prompts. I wanted half the prompts to seem like things that happened to the player, and half the prompts to be things the player pursued themselves. I wasn’t sure how this would come across, and it turned out that it didn’t work for a reason I hadn’t foreseen. The player never rolled high, so never ended up getting any of the environmental prompts. This was a short game, but I still want them to happen a bit more often. I was satisfied with how the prompts ended up creating a very dream-like story - it was silly, but sounded like it was a dream. I was happy the dream logic ended up showing through in the game. The player also played as himself rather than a character; I had planned this with a character in mind, and should maybe make this more clear. One thing I ran into that the player agreed with was that the other aces should probably be game end conditions as well; the player said that his story seemed to end with the prompt, but the game didn’t technically end. I also need to really solidify the character creation, and make it clear exactly what players need to create. 

One thing that I found very interesting this week was reading about lyric games. I got really inspired looking through the reading given to me in response to my second journal entry. Looking through it, I realized that lyric games hit the chord of experiences I want to create, regardless of medium. They seem to hit upon exactly what I like about the media that I like. The “removal of the distance between the ‘player’ and the ‘character’” really touches on why I love movies (Codega). I really like it when characters are not necessarily people, but rather reflections of parts of the viewer. It feels hard to describe exactly what it is, but that’s exactly what the reading said about lyric games! It reminds me of a game I’ve been trying to make: I want to make a game that feels like watching Inland Empire. That feeling of lack of understanding while in a familiar medium is something I’ve always wanted to accomplish in a game. The “reversal of assumptions” of lyric games is another aspect of this that perfectly captures that feeling (Codega). Looking at the games, LOGAN definitely sounded like something I would like to play. I really want to examine the idea of connecting the player to the designer, and intentionally creating a sort of parasocial experience. However, the game that really stood out to me is 101 Games for Survival. I read the small game listed on the itch page, and it touched me deeply. I plan to play (or read, as I really like the idea that lyric games work with reading as play) through the game myself soon. The levels of personal introspection and emotion that come from mixing yourself with the game are something I would really like to play with in my own work. 

I’ve started thinking about what I want to do for my final project, and I am torn between a couple different things. I like my game for Experiment 3, and think that I would enjoy tuning it more. However, I also really want to develop a game I made before. The game was what I described as an almost dream game of mine to develop. It’s a solo-journaling game about a character who wants to code themself into a computer. The game is designed so that the character experiences life in a way that makes them feel afraid and uncomfortable, and they slowly come up with algorithms for certain types of interactions. As they code themselves, they become unable to understand new experiences or be affected by them. The game follows them becoming more and more isolated as they become more and more code. I think that for my project I would really like to take one of these games and develop them into some sort of lyric game. I really like the idea of making the code game into one, but I’m worried that would go too far in terms of player safety/enjoyment. I’m going to play around with what I would want to do with either concept, but I know I want to experiment with lyric games.